Long Live the Long, and the Short, Skirt

By ELAINE LOUIE

Published: October 20, 1991

Designers and retailers suspect the first women to embrace the newer long skirts, which are being shown side by side with short ones, tumble into four categories:

*The ones without gorgeous legs, who have been hiding in pants.

*The ones who think they are cutting-edge fashion plates.

*The ones who are long-skirt diehards, despite the momentary trends.

*"People in my age group," said the designer Norma Kamali, who is 46.

The trick in wearing a long skirt is to avoid a feeling of dowdiness when other women dart by in their snug little short skirts, flashing their legs. To make a long, straight skirt sexy and easy to move in, some designers put in slits. A woman in a long skirt must tell herself that she is neither a fashion victim nor a Victorian prude. She can say she is avant-garde. The long skirt has to be perceived as sophisticated or "directional," said Barbara Weiser, a vice president of Charivari, which has stores in Manhattan and Tokyo.

For a woman who wants to bare flesh while wearing a long skirt, there is Comme des Garcons's white cotton shirt with clear vinyl long sleeves ($190) paired with a black A-line wool gabardine skirt ($420). The legs are covered; the arms play peekaboo. The outfit is at Charivari Workshop, 81st Street and Columbus Avenue.

Ms. Kamali designed three dresses with skirts that swing out. "It's hard to sell a straight skirt, even one with a slit," the designer said. "It's easier to sell movement in a long skirt."

Her single-breasted black-and-white plaid wool dress, with a black velvet collar and cuffs, sells for $1,108. A double-breasted, black-and-white checked wool dress, also with a black velvet collar and cuffs, is $1,206. A turtleneck black stretch-velvet dress of polyester/nylon/Lycra has a circle skirt ($299). All are at Omo Norma Kamali, 11 West 56th Street.

"Proportion is the key to wearing the long skirt," said Harriet Love, who owns a clothing shop in Manhattan. "With a long skirt, one can wear a very close-to-the-body jacket or sweater and look slim and slender." The retailer paired a Taryn De Chellis gray-green checked rayon skirt ($130) with a green wool cardigan by Ventilo ($129) or a sage silk blouse designed by Bryan Emerson ($200). The clothes are at Harriet Love, 412 West Broadway, near Spring.

Whether all women will switch from short to long is moot. From Europe, where Ms. Weiser is attending fashion shows, she said Azzedine Alaia was also showing long skirts. "At Dolce & Gabbana," she added, "clothes were so short that one was left with only a corset and garter."